The Axeman of New Orleans

by Miriam C. Davis

  “Frank, what kind of trick is this?”

  Frank continued to stare at her without saying a word.

  Now sure that something was wrong, Rosie reached for the pistol under her pillow, but Frank grabbed her wrists and restrained her. Frightened, Rosie looked up at Frank and pleaded, “Do what you please with me and Charlie, but don’t touch the baby!”

  Frank replied tersely, “I have got to kill the baby because it is crying,” even though, Rosie testified, Mary wasn’t crying.

  The courtroom was deadly silent as Rosie described how “he”—and she pointed to old Mr. Jordano—“went to get the axe.” Then, she continued, Frank hit Mary three times with the axe—“three licks” is how she phrased it—and when he finished with the baby, he struck her twice.

  Gaudet then turned to what the prosecution believed was the motive for this brutal attack. He quizzed Rosie about the dispute she and Charlie had had with the Jordanos over the grocery store, and she narrated the story of how they’d rented the building before the Jordanos demanded it back.

  When William Byrnes stood up to cross-examine the young woman, he had a delicate task. Frank and Iorlando vehemently denied assaulting their neighbors and killing their daughter, and neither had any idea why Rosie would claim they’d done such a thing. So Byrnes had to persuade the jury that her story wasn’t credible. Which meant he needed to discredit the story of a very sympathetic defendant. He began gingerly.

  “Miss Rosie,” he said, “you don’t mind me calling you by the same name that Mr. Gaudet called you?”

  “No sir,” she replied.

  Byrnes requested to see the scar on her right arm. Rosie held up her arm for the jury. He asked her how she came to have the scar. She said she didn’t know. Byrnes pressed her, and Rosie insisted again that she didn’t know. This would be a point the defense would return to.

  Byrnes questioned Rosie about how old she was, how long she’d known Frank, where she went to school. He asked who had brought her to the Gretna jail and how long she was there. Then he turned to more important matters.

  “Now, Miss Rosie,” Byrnes began, “we have to come to a very unpleasant thing, but we have to ask you these questions.” He needed her to revisit the night of the attack, and he grilled her closely, but as gently as he could, about the events that had culminated in her daughter’s murder.

  Rosie repeated the story she’d told before. She’d heard a noise that she thought was the puppy and then napped while the baby nursed. About forty-five minutes later, Frank and Iorlando Jordano had appeared in her bedroom. She sat up, pulling the baby away from her breast. Frank told her he had to kill the baby; Iorlando left the room to get the axe, and when he returned, Frank hit Mary and then swung at Rosie.

  “I know he hit me two licks,” she said. “I could hear them two licks hit.” As she fainted from the blows, Rosie continued, she’d dropped Mary, and Frank had snatched her up.

  “Was the baby crying?” Byrnes asked, referring to the moment when Frank took the axe from Iorlando.

  No, Rosie replied. The baby was asking to nurse, saying, “I want ninny, mama, I want ninny.” So she said, “All right honey, I am going to give you ninny.”

  Byrnes asked, ever so slightly disbelievingly, “You did not have time to scream?”

  Rosie flatly repeated herself: “I had no time to scream.”

  “But you had to tell the baby those words, ‘I’m going to give you the breast’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Byrnes had to hope the contradiction made an impact on the jury. He also had another point that showed her story didn’t make sense. “Miss Rosie, you said when Frank hit you with the axe that the baby fell and he grabbed the baby?”

  “Yes, sir,” Rosie agreed. “He grabbed the baby.”

  “Now, how could he grab the baby, and have the axe in his hand and hit you a second time?”

  Rosie looked unhappy. “I don’t know how he was doing it; but I seen him grab the baby.”

  Byrnes inquired as to why she didn’t holler when the old man left the room to get the axe.

  “Because,” she retorted, “it didn’t take”—she snapped her fingers—“that long!”

  Disbelief in his voice, the attorney responded: “You had no chance to holler while he held your hands, and his father went in to the other room and got the axe, and brought the axe back into that room, and handed it to Frank, and Frank hit the baby three times and then hit you? You mean to tell this jury that you did not have time to holler?”

  “I was worrying about my baby,” Rosie protested.

  “You did not jump out of bed?”

  “No.”

  “You did not wake Charlie up?”

  “No.”

  “You did not scream?”

  “No.”

  “You did not fight?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t run?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t kick Charlie?”

  Rosie laughed. “No, I didn’t kick Charlie.”

  Byrnes was startled. “This is no laughing matter,” he said. “But go ahead and laugh as much as you please.”

  He continued probing: “All Charlie would have had to do was to reach his hand out and take the revolver to have protected you and that baby. Isn’t that correct?”

  At this, District Attorney Rivarde objected. “Your honor, this elicits an opinion from the witness as to what Charlie could or could not have done.”

  Byrnes was happy to be reasonable. He offered to ask the witness only how wide the couple’s bed was. He turned to Rosie. “It’s a double iron bed, is it not?”

  Rosie hesitated and looked unsure of herself. “How do you mean ‘double’?”

  The attorney clarified: “I mean for two people to sleep in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you wake Charlie up when you saw Frank and his father there?”

  “I never thought Frank was going to kill my baby.”

  “You didn’t think it necessary to wake your husband up when you saw two men enter your room in the dead of night?”

  Well, Rosie replied, it had all happened so quickly.

  “Now, if you had time to talk to Frank, then why didn’t you scream?”

  “I never had any idea to scream.”

  “You said a moment ago you didn’t have a chance to scream.”

  “No, I hadn’t a chance; and I hadn’t the idea either.”

  “But you had the chance to tell Frank, ‘Do what you please with me and Charlie, but spare my baby’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Then Byrnes turned to the length of time Iorlando Jordano had been out of the bedroom to get the axe. “And all that time, you say, you didn’t have a chance to scream, or to awaken your husband?”

  “It was done so quick I didn’t know what to do. I was studying about my baby.”

  “It was done so quick, that the father had a chance to go into the other room, and maybe as far as into the yard, and then came back, and you call that quick?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Now the defense attorney’s cross-examination was catching fire. “Miss Rosie, how were Frank’s hands that night; were they warm or cold when he took hold of you?”

  Rosie looked offended. “I don’t know how they were; I was so scared after he done that. Do you think I had cheek enough to know how his hands were, whether cold or warm?”

  The defense lawyer was sharp: “Yes, I think you should have had cheek enough; I think you had; and there were a whole lot of things you should not have done.”

  Byrnes picked up the axe police had found at the crime scene and approached Rosie. “Now, how did Frank take the axe?”

  “In both hands,” she said. “Right here,” pointing to the center of the handle.

  “Then he turned you loose completely?”

  “Yes.”

  “He didn’t hold you and the baby?”

  “No.”

  “He took the axe in
both hands?”

  “Yes.”

  “How high did he raise it?”

  “I don’t know how high he raised it. I was looking at my baby.”

  “Why weren’t you looking at him?”

  “I didn’t think he was going to hit my baby.”

  Byrnes was incredulous: “He picked up the axe, and you told him do what he wanted to do to you and to your husband, but to spare your baby; and after he told you, according to what you say, he was going to kill your baby, you didn’t think he was going to do anything?”

  “I didn’t think he had such a heart as that.”

  “You never thought he had such a heart as that after he told you he was going to do it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You say he hit the baby three times?”

  “Yes, sir; three times.”

  The attorney lifted the axe above his head to illustrate. “He hit the baby like this?” Byrnes asked, bringing the axe down in a hacking motion. “And again? And then again?” He brought the axe down three times, simulating three strikes.

  “Yes, sir; just that way.”

  “Why didn’t you throw your baby out of the bed?”

  “I never had that idea.”

  “It is natural to scream when a person gets frightened. What do you usually do when you get frightened?”

  Rosie didn’t answer.

  The witness had been on the stand all morning. Judge Fleury ordered a midday recess for dinner.

  In the afternoon session, Byrnes’s goal was to lay the foundation—in a technical legal sense—for impeaching Rosie’s testimony. For this, he needed her to make statements that later witnesses would contradict.

  Byrnes returned to the subject of the scar on Rosie’s arm. He asked her if she knew a real estate agent named Paul Dupas. She knew him, she said, because he had sold them several lots of land.

  “Now,” Byrnes continued, “do you recall making a statement to him about how you received that cut on your arm?”

  She thought for a second. “I told him I was cut, but I didn’t know who done it.”

  “Miss Rosie,” Byrnes cautioned, “I want to warn you that I intend to contradict you on that matter and have summoned Mr. Dupas for that purpose. So I want to ask you now, again, if you did not make the following statement to Mr. Dupas: That Frank Jordano had hit you on the arm with the axe and had made that scar on your arm?”

  Rosie could only stutter. “U-n-g—h-un.”

  “Did you make that statement to him?”

  “I did not tell him that Frank done that with the axe; I did not know who cut that.”

  Byrnes questioned Rosie for several more minutes, hammering her on what she had told Paul Dupas. He asked about a second encounter she’d had with Dupas, when she’d told him that the cut had been done in the hospital “by the doctors putting something in your arm.” Rosie repeated that she didn’t know how she’d received the cut; she’d never known. Byrnes had accomplished his task; he’d laid the groundwork to show that Rosie was lying—or at least unreliable—when he would later call Dupas to the stand.

  But he wasn’t finished. He had another witness to impeach Rosie’s narrative. Byrnes asked Rosie if she knew a woman named Margaret Williams, a detective hired by the defense to pose as a door-to-door seller of women’s toilet articles in an effort to talk to Rosie. Rosie didn’t know the name, so Miss Williams was brought into the courtroom. Yes, Rosie, acknowledged, when she got a look at the young woman, she’d met her twice. The lady had told her “she was selling cologne, powder and face soap.”

  Byrnes asked Rosie what she’d told Margaret Williams about the case. At first, she denied telling her anything. Then she contradicted herself, saying that she’d told Miss Williams that Frank Jordano had attacked her and Charlie.

  “Now Miss Rosie, didn’t you tell her that you didn’t know whether it was Frank Jordano, or his father that had hold of your hands?”

  Rosie emphatically denied telling her that.

  Again, Byrnes warned Rosie that he was planning to contradict her with Margret Williams’s testimony later.

  “Did you tell her that you were awakened suddenly?”

  “What do you mean ‘suddenly’?”

  “Quickly. That you were awakened; seeing two men by your bed, you recognized them as Frank Jordano and his father, but did not have time to scream; that one of the men caught you by the arm; that you don’t remember which man struck the baby. Do you remember making that statement?”

  Rosie did not: “I never told her that.”

  Suddenly, Byrnes changed direction. “Now Miss Rosie, who was the first one to tell you that Frank Jordano had been arrested for this crime?”

  Rosie: “I don’t remember who told me, but I remember he was in jail, and I knew he done it, and I said he done it.”

  “You don’t remember anybody telling you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, how did you learn of it?”

  “Didn’t I know who done it? What do you think he was going to be put in jail for?”

  Not unkindly, Byrnes replied, “No, I am not asking you that, Miss Rosie. I am asking you this question, and I am going to go over it very carefully because I do not desire to confuse you, or be funny, or smart, or anything else. Who was the first person that told you that Frank Jordano had been arrested and put in jail and accused of this crime?”

  Rosie insisted that she couldn’t remember who told her Frank was in jail; all she knew was that he was.

  “You had left the hospital when they told you that Frank Jordano was in jail?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you remember making a statement while in the hospital that it was your husband that struck you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you believe you might have made it?”

  “When I was unconscious I don’t remember what I was saying; I might say anything.”

  “What was told you when they took you on the ferryboat on the day they brought you over here? What did they tell you when they brought you to the jail?”

  Rosie misunderstood the question. She replied that being taken to jail left her so shaken that she couldn’t say anything.

  “Now during that time [in jail] did you make any statement?”

  “Yes, sir; I made two statements.”

  “Now, did you write those statements down?”

  “No. I cannot write in American.”

  “Were those statements written down?”

  “One was; the second one.”

  “Did you sign it?”

  “Yes, I signed it.”

  Byrnes turned to Judge Fleury. “Now, if your Honor please . . . I now call upon the District Attorney to produce that statement.”

  Bob Rivarde denied that he possessed any such statement. He added, however, that if he did, he would have no obligation to turn it over to the defense. Judge Fleury sided with the DA, ruling that the defense had no right to the state’s evidence.

  Byrnes turned back to the witness. “Before whom did you make the statement?”

  Rosie again was puzzled by the language. “Before whom? How do you mean?”

  Byrnes clarified: “Who was present, and who took it down in writing?”

  Rosie named Charlie Burgbacher (the deputy sheriff in charge of the jail), Clay Gaudet, and another man who came with Mr. Gaudet whose name she didn’t know.

  “It was this gentleman—Clay Gaudet—who is now assisting the District Attorney who took down your statement?” Byrnes asked.

  Rosie: “How you mean ‘assisting’?”

  “He is helping the District Attorney. The same man that took that statement down in writing, and had you swear to it, is the same gentleman that is now here with Mr. Rivarde, Mr. Clay Gaudet?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Again, Byrnes turned to the prosecution. “I call upon Mr. Gaudet, an associate counsel for the prosecution, for the production of that statement.” He argued that he was entitled to it because
he believed it would contradict Rosie’s testimony.

  Once again, Rivarde demurred. “We refuse to produce it because it is not a public record.”

  The judge ruled against the defense again, another short-term defeat. Byrnes turned to other matters. After quizzing her about her statement to the coroner’s jury, Byrnes asked Rosie about the relationship between the Jordanos and Mary.

  “Now Miss Rosie, where did you get your baby from the night before this crime happened—on Friday night.”

  “Mrs. Jordano’s house. She was playing, and I told her to come on home, and Frank said, ‘Let her stay,’ and I said, ‘No, it’s time to put her to bed,’ and I picked her up and went home with her.”

  “Now, is it not a fact, that Frank Jordano was very fond of your baby?”

  “Yes, he loved the baby; but I don’t know if he meant it in his heart. He always loved the baby, and kissed it.”

  Byrnes asked Rosie about her relationship with Frank. “Had you and Frank ever had any words or fuss?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Were you friendly?”

  “I was friendly.”

  “Whenever Frank was there he played with the baby, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did the baby call Mr. Jordano, the old gentleman?”

  “Grandpa.”

  “One time when the baby was very sick didn’t Mrs. Jordano nurse the baby?”

  “Yes, sir; many time when the baby was sick. I always got her to do something for the baby, and she always done it.”

  “She was very fond of the baby?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Mr. Jordano, the old gentleman, was very fond of the baby, too?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the baby was very fond of him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Byrnes hoped he’d made his point.

  At this point Byrnes passed the cross-examination over to his co-counsel, Archie Higgins. Higgins’s task was to question Rosie again about how she and Charlie had been ejected from their grocery. It was a risky strategy, dangerously emphasizing the conflict between the two families. But perhaps it would suggest to the jury a reason that Rosie might invent testimony against the father and son.

  He asked her a few questions about the legal notice that was served forcing them to give up the store, how long it took them to actually move, and how hard Iorlando had pressed them to leave.